May has always been an exciting month. As a kid, I looked forward to the school year ending and the warm weather welcoming me just in time for my birthday at the end of the month. Summer also means swimming and dancing in the water from the fire hydrant and water guns!
Introducing Lonnie Johnson, the inventor of the super soaker!
Lonnie Johnson was born in Mobile, Alabama, on October 6, 1949. Signs of Lonnie’s brilliance could be seen when he was a child reverse-engineering his sister’s baby doll to understand how the eyes closed. He also built his own go-cart from a lawnmower engine he attached to scraps he found in the junkyard.
Before enlisting in the Air Force, he worked as a research engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He also worked at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as the acting chief of the Space Nuclear Power Safety Section.
Johnson holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering, an M.S. degree in Nuclear Engineering, and an honorary Ph.D. in Science from Tuskegee University.
In 1989, Johnson formed his own engineering firm and licensed his most famous invention, the super soaker. It generated over $200 million in retail sales and became thenumber-one-selling toy in America.
Today, Johnson is president and founder of Johnson Research and Development Co., Inc., a technology development company, and its spin-off companies, Excellatron Solid State, LLC; Johnson Electro-Mechanical Systems, LLC; and Johnson Real Estate Investments, LLC.
As of 2023, Lonnie Johnson’s net worth was an estimated $160 million. This substantial fortune is primarily the result of the royalties he received for the Super Soaker, which generated billions of dollars.
So the next time your child plays with a super soaker, be sure they know about its amazing inventor!
Supporting a fellow poetess at the Atlanta African American Book Festival, 2019.
In my years of consulting with authors and working with them on their books, I’ve discovered that the most difficult challenge for many is not writing the book (many of them have been writing their entire lives) but finding innovative ways to market and promote it.
With so many hats to wear, the last thing an Indie Author wants to do is strategize about how to promote their book day in and day out.
And you know what? We don’t have to!
Everything does not have to be part of some grand strategy that only a rocket scientist could understand. The secret to wisdom is often in its simplicity.
Considering it as relationship-building and connection-making rather than marketing and promotion could help you focus on the reasons behind your book. It involves thinking up creative ways to draw in and hold the interest of those who are already searching for solutions to the problems your books address.
Not only can these connections help you meet new people who buy books, but you might also find a business partner or lifelong friend.
Since your identity as an author is heavily influenced by who you are personally, it might be beneficial to present your individuality and draw on real-world experiences to engage readers on a deeper level.
Dr. Jackie Walters does this well.
Award-winning OB/GYN and star of the hit TV show Married to Medicine on Bravo, I reviewed her book a few years ago. The Queen V: Everything You Need to Know About Sex, Intimacy, and Down There Health Care goes into detail about our precious lady parts and all the ways to stay healthy. She has these videos where she reveals something informative about the vulva, sex, and intimacy.
Here’s the important part: She only sometimes mentions her book in these videos! Sometimes, she’ll just have it sitting to the side, or it won’t be in the shot at all.
Dr. Jackie understands her expertise, and by educating her people and entertaining them with her props (she uses fruits and everything, chile), people are increasingly interested in her topic and her book without her mentioning it in every post.
She just shows up as herself.
In the end, we must show people why they should buy our book, not just that they should. This builds genuine connections and strong relationships that help our books to sell without stressing us out.
“I give a holler to my sisters on welfare Tupac cares, if don’t nobody else care”
You know, it’s funny when it rains it pours They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor.”
-Tupac, Keep Ya Head Up
Even though life tried to take me out in a toilet, I got here healthy, drug-free, and a head full of hair.
After two weeks in the hospital, Mama was allowed to take me home, if that’s what you wanna call it. Our building had been built in the 60s, but it wasn’t much of a building by the late 80s and into the early 90s.
Rats and roaches plagued our apartments, and the housing authorities couldn’t care less. Brand-new babies like me were brought home to nothing but drug dealers and addicts, children sprawled about like clothes somebody left on the floor and forgot to wash, so it wasn’t no surprise when The White Lady came.
That’s what people said when the social workers came to inspect the low-income apartments, “The White Lady.” They ain’t never have a name.
The woman stood in the kitchen, talking to Mama, and looking around our place with distaste. She gazed at the Crisco on top of the stove, as well as the dish rack, which was piled high with plates, bowls, cups, and cutlery. It wasn’t cute, but it was clean.
Her gaze moved to my brother and me, who were playing on the thick blanket on the floor we called a pallet. Well, he was playing, and I was doing whatever it was babies do.
My Uncle Rome hid in the closet next to the bathroom cause he wasn’t on the lease. Black women weren’t allowed to have a man in the house in those days if they wanted to get the Welfare. We also had to hide the new toaster, dish rack, and telephone so they wouldn’t take away any money.
“Mrs. House, your son is developing slowly for his age…”
The short, green-eyed blonde balanced a clipboard in her arms and scratched her nose with the tip of her writing pen. The hoop ring in her right nostril and the sunflower tattoo on her exposed arm caught my Uncle Jerome’s eye.
My favorite uncle and unofficial babysitter, we called my mother’s little brother Rome for short. He thought he was Romeo to every woman’s Juliet. His dark chocolate skin tone and thick lips drove them crazy. Mama said if he took the time to read Romeo and Juliet’s story, he might want to be somebody else.
“Ain’t nothing romantic about no Romeo and Juliet,” she’d lecture him when he bragged about his latest escapades.
“Why is that?”
“They both died fool.”
Uncle Rome said he wasn’t into white women like that, but this one was “sho-nuff fine.” Unk was lying. He loved him some white women. He just wanted to know why she was so young and how long she’d been working with social services to where she could take his sister’s kids.
“…and your 2-month-old is malnourished,” said the White Lady.
“It’s Miss House,” said Mama, taking a drag of her cigarette, inhaling smoke, and blowing it out of her nose. “Since you know so damn much.”
Uncle Rome did one of those fake coughs you do to cover up a laugh.
The lady ignored my mother. “Miss House, have you been using the Food Stamps?”
Unk said Mama frowned, “Yes, I use my stamps. Fuck I look like not to use Food Stamps?”
“I just wanna make sure you didn’t sell them, is all,” said the white lady.
“Oh, so you my judge now? I look incompetent to you?”
See, that’s what I loved about Mama. Yeah, she was a heroin addict, but she wasn’t no fool. A wordsmith with a mouth like a two-edged sword, she’ll curse you out every which way but loose and diversify her vocabulary while at it so you can know she’s cursing because she wants to, not because she doesn’t have the words to say what’s on her mind.
Mama used to write poems and stories before she got pregnant with Aaron. She also went to school to do hair. There wasn’t nothing my Mama couldn’t do. I wished she would get back to her art. Maybe that would help keep her away from the drugs.
“Look, are you done? Cause, as you can see, I have kids to look after.”
The woman scanned the apartment once more, frowning at a roach crawling on the wall. “Let’s just hope you are taking care of these children. This is your final warning, Miss House. If I have to come back here again…”
“Yeah, I know,” interrupted Mama, blowing out more smoke. “Are we done?”
The woman nodded, “We are.”
As she walked toward the door, she stopped to look once more at us and then back at my mother. “Probably not a good idea for you to smoke in front of the children.”
Mama rolled her eyes, dropped the cigarette on the floor, stomped it with her foot, and waved the woman off.
According to my uncle’s story, the woman left us alone after that. But, in my fifth month, someone new came to visit, and I was taken away from Mama and placed in foster care, where I would stay for the next five years.
“Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? It learned to walk without having feet. Funny, it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else cared.”
– Tupac Amaru Shakur
I was almost born in the toilet.
My brother, Aaron, had just turned two, and Mama was only five months pregnant when Theresa (we call her Reese) caught her shooting up in the bathroom. That’s when she felt my head. “I think I feel my baby,” she slurred.
People around my way love to quote Tupac’s Rose That Grew from Concrete, but they don’t really know what it means. They don’t know nothing about coming up from the hardest part of the earth, snuggled between nothing but weeds, dirt, and the butts of cigarettes.
Then, the sun is so hot sometimes, the poor flowers (that are not really flowers cause they ain’t get the nutrients they need) just wither up and die. That’s what we really fight against here in these slums, in this place they want us to call home, but it ain’t never feel like it. Never felt like a hug or Big Mama’s greens.
That’s how the bathroom was almost my birthplace. Right there at 4840 South State Street, apartment 602. I feel sorry for Reese having to see her auntie slumped over like that and her own mother high as a kite in the other room. How is somebody supposed to get ready for school in this mess?
Reese was strong, though. She banged her fist against the door real hard like the police when they raided the sniper apartments. What is a sniper apartment? It’s just what it says: Empty flats on the top floors drug dealers used to shoot their enemies down below, like snipers on the battlefield.
Photo Cred: Williams Humbles
“Aunt Helen! Auntie, I gotta get ready for school!”
Frustrated, my mother, belly hanging over blue jeans now too small to zip up all the way and a dingy white t-shirt, finally opened the door.
“Come on, girl, shit,” she said, pointing to the tub. “Hurry up,” she rushed as Reese undressed and ran the water.
Mama sat back on the toilet and wrapped the belt tight around her forearm, a burned spoon dangling on the edge of the sink like it was supposed to be there. Like it was a toothbrush waiting to be used. Reese said she remembers praying Aunt Helen wouldn’t ask her to help tie her off like the other times.
“Close that curtain. Hurry up!”
After Mama said she could feel my head, Reese ran out of the bathroom, butt naked, and into her mother’s room. Dazed from her own high, Auntie Lorraine jumped up nevertheless. She knew her sister was pregnant and hurried to the bathroom, except she didn’t use her fist like her daughter. Auntie Lorraine, big-boned and shaped like Sara Baartman, used the back of her foot, slamming it against the door.
“Helen!” she screamed, but Mama wasn’t opening the door, so Auntie Lorraine had to kick it in, the needle falling from my mother’s long, skinny fingers like a witness eager to expose her secrets.
And as they say, the rest is history.
My name is Rosalind House, but everybody calls me Rose for short. I was born two months later, on June 21, 1987, premature and weighing a whopping 3 lbs and screaming at the top of my lungs. They say that’s why my voice is so high-pitched and sweet. They say it’s like something the Lord made. Say, I’m gone use it to shout my way out of this place.
And I did.
Let me tell you how it happened.
I missed writing fiction, so I started a new story!
I am calling it Concrete Rose (for now). I’ll be sharing the first few chapters based on response, so if you wanna read more, let me know! 🙂
I was listening to a podcast with Myron Golden (he’s brilliant) about high-ticket coaching and sales, and I realized something: It’s hard to sell books because people don’t buy books.
They buy into the message behind the book, and its perceived value.
It’s not even about the book’s quality because people don’t buy quality either. They expect it.
I call this series Indie Author Basics because it focuses on the fundamentals of creating high-quality books. Every reader wants the book they buy to be well-produced. At the most basic level, we want to produce a high-quality book that meets that expectation.
But to go deeper, even more than quality, is what people feel. People will pay you when something is worth more than the money to them, and that’s the perceived value and the message.
This is why, as authors, we do interviews and podcasts, book signings, and meet and greets. It is why we write blog posts, post to social media, collaborate with other authors, and build relationships: to create an environment that helps us amplify our voices.
“Dig your well before you’re thirsty.”
– Harvey MacKay
Before I published Black History Facts, I published over fifty articles on Black History Fun Fact Friday. I then headed to IG and TikTok, turning those fun facts into posts and videos. It did better than I expected. In fact, it did so well that people asked me about the book, which wasn’t published yet.
I created an appetite for the book before I wrote the book.
I also set my preorder price for the ebook to $9.99 on Amazon and sold the hardcovers for $34. I also offered a bundle package which I sold for $97. From this, I learned two things:
To quote Golden, “Your price is part of your branding.” It tells people how valuable you are.
I knew I needed to upgrade my mindset and prices for this kind of book. People who buy premium-value products will buy something just because it’s expensive. Their own sense of intrinsic value will cause them to pay more because it reminds them that they are worth it.
A person who purchases a Rolex probably didn’t do it because they wanted to wear a watch. They could buy any watch if they just wanted to tell time. But what they want is the prestige that comes with wearing an expensive watch.
This means that people also buy status.
SN: This does not mean throwing something together and then charging people up the ass for it. Remember, a good quality product is basic.
People will pay you when the perceived value is worth more than their money.
People buy belonging, confidence, safety, knowledge, and solutions to their problems.
They buy reassurance and peace of mind.
So, I will not try to sell books because I now know that people don’t buy books.
Instead, I will continue to share my message (restoring black historical truth) and create an appetite for it by delivering value!
Nobody talks about society’s addiction to black trauma. How much more profitable it is to talk about pain than poems, depression than joy.
Like we don’t have feelings just bad experiences turned into songs of sorrows and spirituals of reaching heaven cause there can’t be no freedom here on Earth for Black people.
Maybe this world still doesn’t consider us human enough to be happy someone hand society a roadmap for getting to know black people.
Tell them they can find us laughing even when life is lifeing cracking jokes and turning sadness into praise. Tell them we are not just guns and gangs.
Our hope does not hang on by string on some cracked-out corner or trap house Tell them how we dream. Big Mama musta had mustard seeds underneath the mattress cause she moved mountains. Food and faith ain’t never been hard to find. We gone eat.
Talk about our love our sense of community our building our builders our beauty.
We’ve had a wild ride here in this country But it was not all bad.
Together, we forged a world of our own found solace in the cracks made meals from scraps and carved out our own sense of enjoyment and purpose.
Tell them about how the cells of a black woman saved the world and the genius of a Black man lit it up. Talk about how we bless everything we touch.
Tell the whole truth that we are not made up only of pain.
Joy lives here, too.
You can listen to this poem on TikTok and YouTube! I’m @yecheilyah on both.
Black History Facts is back! If you’ve been waiting for a signed copy, this is your chance to get your hands on it. We are back in stock. Go now to: https://www.blkhistorybook.com/.
The PBS Blog 